This week, IICSA has been listening to evidence from the Catholic Archdiocese of Birmingham and its poor record of dealing with the sexual abuse of children by clergy. Birmingham Catholics can claim one unenviable record over the Anglican Church. One of their priests, James Robinson, was sentenced to the longest ever period in prison for a church related sexual offence against minors, 21 years. The severity of his crimes was known about for decades, but the church authorities seemed curiously reluctant to do anything decisive about his case. Instead he was apparently harboured, protected and allowed to spend time abroad

The chief witness, Cardinal Vincent Nicholls, formerly Archbishop of Birmingham, did not appear on Tuesday as had been prearranged. He had been taken ill at a Remembrance Sunday gathering. We were given a long time for the examination of the diocesan officer for safeguarding, Jane Jones. Her testimony was punctuated with numerous recitations of ‘I do not recall’ or ‘I do not remember the details’. In her defence, it was later revealed that she had been given the impossible brief of being the one designated to support both the accused offenders as well as the abused. It is hardly surprising that many of the survivors felt less than adequately supported under her care. The evidence of Eileen Shearer, the former national Catholic coordinator had much more power and it gave us the atmosphere of how difficult it was to shift attitudes of bishops and priests in this area of safeguarding.

This reflection cannot be a full report of the evidence, as I only dipped in and out of the hearings this week. But there is one topic that stuck out for me as I watched the summing up on Friday afternoon. The lawyers representing the victims spoke of the ‘robust’ defence of the Catholic Church against the claims of survivors and the extraordinary legal steps that were regularly taken to avoid ever admitting liability. The legal processes used by Church of England lawyers apparently no longer use time limitation arguments when negotiating settlements with survivors. In contrast it seems that the lawyers employed by the Birmingham Archdiocese used every possible trick in the book to avoid admitting any liability even when it was widely accepted that some of these priests were guilty of crimes. This defensiveness was also combined with a far worse record on the part of the Catholic Church for supporting victims than for Anglican survivors. This lack of meaningful support together with aggressive legal tactics being used against victims, has been a cause of extra suffering for this group. We are talking about a considerable number of individuals. Few of them have received any compensation, let alone obtained adequate resources to assist them in finding psychological support.

The combination of aggressive behaviour towards victims and the operation of a defensive shield on behalf of a church reminds us of similar tactics used by the Church of England. What might account for this behaviour? The simple answer is always to follow the money. When victims are sufficiently battered, they will be more likely to accept a lower level of compensation from the offending institution. I have no inside knowledge about the relative payments made to Catholic and Anglican survivors, but it would seem common-sense to suggest that insurance companies would want to make the process of claiming as unpleasant as possible to encourage fewer claims. The Church of England is insured by the Ecclesiastical Insurance Group. The Catholic Church uses a company based in Guernsey which apparently is so secretive that it does not have a web-site. This combination of secrecy, traditional Catholic reticence and the financial advantages of being based in a tax haven raises eye-brows. I can go no farther than that. All I can say is that if we want to know who may be calling the shots in the shabbily ineffective conduct of child protection among Catholics in Birmingham over the past fifty years, we might start, not with the Vatican or even the beleaguered successive Archbishops of Birmingham, but with a secretive insurance group based in Guernsey.

As this is a short piece, I am not going to develop this speculation. Perhaps what I am asking of both the Anglican and the Catholic churches is to question whether they are fully in control of the care of survivors. Have they perhaps handed over some part of this responsibility to the interests and priorities of insurance companies? A failure to be open, pastoral and caring towards survivors is a constant point of complaint on this blog. Is it somehow connected with the need to preserve the financial interests of insurance companies? We certainly have witnessed today, Friday, evidence of callous, indifferent behaviour by an institution towards a group of vulnerable people. What created that environment of detachment and distance? Perhaps we should not blame only the bishops who are in nominal charge but the insurance companies and the supporting lawyers who appear to give the church their orders. It is a travesty of gospel values if we find that it is the money men who are those who dictate safeguarding policy and pastoral practice to the churches of our country.

There are some words in common usage that trip off the tongue without our giving a great deal of thought about their meaning. One of these words is democracy. It is a word that speaks of an aspect of society that we value but often take for granted. We may find ourselves examining the meaning of this word more closely when its opposite, authoritarianism, appears on the horizon. When authoritarian rule threatens a society, people find themselves looking to the institutions which are designed to check it, such as the Press or the independence of the legal system. In this country we value living in a society where constitutionally the will of the people is regularly consulted. The people vote in or vote out an administration according to their perceptions of its competence to manage the country.

Democracy is a relatively new idea. For most of history and in most places, other systems of government have prevailed. Democracy may have had a brief flowering in Athens during the 400s BC, but even there it was a far from perfect implementation. Women and slaves were excluded from the gatherings of free citizens that made decisions. It was also a fragile institution and there was always the threat that autocracy would reassert itself. Many of the words that describe the different systems of government are Greek words. We have mentioned two of them. There are others, oligarchy, theocracy and tyranny. We can also add Latin words like emperor and dictator. Political systems suggested by each these words have prevailed at different times in history. Of all the possible types, democracy was more often merely an idea rather than a reality. Typically, a powerful man would take over one of the organs of state, such as the army, and then declare himself to be ruler. Sometimes dictatorship was exercised benevolently. The Roman Empire had one such period under three successive emperors, Trajan, Hadrian and Marcus Aurelius. But, apart from this 80-year period, from 100 -180 AD, the history of Rome is marked by an almost constant series of wars, both internal and external.

Many countries today are going through political upheavals. Some seem to be moving towards authoritarian populist right-wing systems of rule. In the case of the United States we see attempts on the part of the Trump-led Republican Party to undermine the rule of law and the role of the Press. Appointing an obviously partisan judge to the highest court of the land little serves the cause of unbiased justice and oversight of the American Constitution. These efforts in the States to move towards what we would call authoritarian rule or tyranny are supported by a large group of evangelical Christians. Many conservative Christians apparently see Trump’s presidency as opening the way to another form of rule, theocracy. Donald Trump is thought to be the new King Cyrus. He it is who is the tool used by God who is coming to rule the country through his chosen representatives.

As an idea, theocracy has only been attempted in a very few places in history. In summary it is the belief that God’s law and will can be applied to a human society and it will usher in some form of perfection. The idea of theocracy could be said to undergird the indescribable brutalities of ISIS in Iraq and Syria. In the West it formed part of the idealism of the early English Puritan settlers who moved to New England in the 1620s. In both examples it can be claimed that idealism was quickly translated into violence (albeit on different scales) as not everyone wanted to conform to the ideals of leaders. Contemporary theocratic ideas in America owe much to the writings of R.J. Rushdoony. In the 1960s he conceived of a system of government entirely based on Old Testament law. http://survivingchurch.org/2014/10/21/reconstructionism/ These ideas have been taken up by a powerful segment of Pentecostal/Charismatic thinkers who are organised in a network known as the New Apostolic Reformation. I have referred to this group several times on this blog, but I still find few in this country who know about the political power of this group in the States. Rusdoony and his later imitators are, as we would expect, enthusiastic about extreme sanctions against those who break sexual codes, including the mention of the death sentence for homosexuality and bestiality. One contemporary expression is the ‘Seven Mountains’ doctrine. This states that it is the duty of Christians to take charge of the seven areas of influence in society on God’s behalf. In short, every expression of culture or power should be under the control of ‘bible-believing’ Christians.

Theocracy as a practical system of government has probably not been worked out fully even by its enthusiastic supporters. But it still exists in the minds of many Trump Christian supporters as a political system which can be realistically implemented in the States. The important (and scary) thing is that they have been led by Rushdoony to believe that the Bible is an adequate basis for all decisions of government. Men of God (it will only be men) will arise to rule on behalf of God. Because they are the genuine servants of the living God, they will be faithful interpreters of his will. Whatever they command in his name will be a perfect expression of God’s law.

It is difficult to see how any modern version of theocracy will do better that its historical precedents in 17th century Massachusetts or ISIS controlled parts of Iraq and Syria. The only way that every individual can be persuaded into obeying an ‘infallible’ leader who speaks the will of God is through force and fear. We know that vast crowds will sometimes willingly follow a leader on some spiritual or political quest. But there will always be doubters or sceptics within the crowd. All our post-Enlightenment instincts want to affirm the legal and moral rights of the non-conformer. Infallibility is not a useful concept either in politics or religion and it does nothing to promote freedom of conscience. The craving for total certainties among conservative Christians as among Trump Republican supporters is a false and futile longing. The application of theocratic rule by ‘godly’ infallible leaders ends up being a path to tyranny, destruction of freedom and violence. Theocracy in short is a false dream. Because it depends on human beings to put it into practice, it will always suffer from the fallibilities to which human beings are always prey. For all its draw-backs democracy remains the best of a bad bunch in the systems of government available to us.

Trumpism and the desired move by his followers towards theocratic systems of government will only, we hope, be a temporary historical blip. But the popularity of this totalitarian thinking across the world must still be faced and challenged. Inclusivity, tolerance and the freedom to disagree with others are worthy causes. Theocracy, as it is believed in by some the States, is an enemy of freedom and a threat to the Christian faith itself. Christ invited us to freedom not the tyranny of coercion and fear.

Every so often I become weary with the cause of reporting and discussing power abuse and the effect that it has on people’s lives. And then I realise very quickly that I, in fact, have a choice in my involvement. As someone who has never known the worst kinds of abuse, I could walk away and think about and study other things. Such choices are not available to those who have, through no fault of their own, joined the ranks of being a survivor or a victim. They are compelled to carry the burden of past horrors every day of their lives. They need other people, whether professionals or amateurs like me, to listen to some of the terrible things that have happened to them. My readiness to write about this community is my small contribution towards helping this group to move towards the healing they need.

After writing this blog for four and half years, I was gratified to meet a few people outside General Synod last February who knew about my efforts on Surviving Church and who wanted to offer encouragement. This was a great help to me. I found myself newly energised and wanting to provide a personal commentary on the IICSA hearings in March and July to help readers understand better the topic of Anglican sexual abuse issues. My viewing figures started to go up, not least because some of my contributions and reflections were being shared more widely on the Internet. I began to feel that this task of reflecting on power/abuse issues was moving from being just a personal interest to becoming a kind of vocation on behalf of the wider Church.

What are my conclusions about the current state of play in the Church of England over abuse and power issues? I wish I could say that the shocks to the system, caused by the revelations at the IICSA hearings earlier this year, had created a humbler, more penitent and open Church. The Church will, when the written conclusions appear, receive a fairly negative verdict from both sets of IICSA hearings. The levels of incompetence, bad faith and behaviours verging on evil have been breath-taking. My impression now is that, in certain areas, things are still not changing. In spite of all the safeguarding structures and training that been put in place over the past years, there are unacceptable levels of secrecy among those who manage the church. One problem now facing the bishops and everyone else involved, is that it is far harder in these days of instant communication and networking to preserve secrets in the church. Today someone has drawn my attention to a new organization in the States called Faithleaks. Its stated aim is to be an ‘organization founded on the belief that increased transparency within religious organizations results in fewer untruths, less corruption, and less abuse’. Initiatives like this will gradually undermine the ability of any church to bury episodes from the past which still have the capacity to shock. The desire to hold on to secrets would appear to be more and more difficult as well as increasingly damaging.

One of the most extraordinary revelations of the past 12 months was the information that was shared in Sir Roger Singleton’s Report on the Past Cases Review (PCR). The PCR was an attempt by the Church of England in 2008-9 to go through all their personnel files to make sure that they had not missed any historic cases of abuse. Singleton’s report showed that whatever was intended by this Review, it was a massive waste of money. While some dioceses may have scrutinised their files thoroughly, others seemed to have done their examination in a very haphazard way. The final total of 13 outstanding cases, from the examination of the files in all 43 dioceses, was laughable in its underestimation of the problem of past abuse. Chichester alone had over 30 cases outstanding and these were, for some reason, not added to the national total. In 2010 when the report appeared, the Church of England were in strong denial about the whole issue. Roger Singleton’s Report seems now to have disappeared from view, as though it too is another piece of paper which needs to be buried because of its capacity to cause embarrassment.

When I reflect in these posts the unhappiness on the part of survivors towards bishops and national safeguarding institutions, I naturally look for an explanation for why this should be so. Why is there tension, defensiveness and secrecy among those who run the church on safeguarding issues? The short answer seems to be that the institution, here the Church of England, feels compelled to defend itself from reputational damage. Stories from the past about abuse undermine the desired narrative of a godly caring body of people who follow Christ. If even a fraction of these stories of abuse were to be true, consequences follow. The general public begins to regard the church as a place of danger because they can no longer trust its servants and representatives to protect the vulnerable. If the PCR had been a properly conducted exercise which squarely faced up to the cases of abuse from the past, the church would no doubt have had a huge crisis to overcome. But that crisis would have been survivable. With the help of large doses of honesty and humility, together with financial provision for survivors, the Church would have pulled through. But the Church chose the path of defensive denial so that even now the full truth of past abuses remains an untold story except to the actual survivors. Secrecy and suppression of truth then, as today, prevailed over openness and honesty.

The picture I have in my mind as I write these words is the picture of a town in a volcanic region. The townspeople worry that there is a danger of an eruption, but its mayor and councillors have told them not to be concerned about the odd rumble that is heard in the ground beneath them. Everything is under control they are told. The volcano will never erupt. But of course, the volcano eventually does erupt. Fortunately, the people of the town have time to flee but the houses and all their possessions have to be left behind. They only escape with their lives.

I believe that in the absence of honesty, repentance and a genuine compassion and care for survivors, the Church is going to be threatened for many years to come by the possibility of a volcanic explosion of truth. As long the Church tries to control the narrative of parts of its history by secrecy, cover-up and the evasion of truth, it risks its future. Last week the Smyth story appeared once more on the net in a perceptive article by Martin Sewell. There are still many unanswered questions. The Singleton Report, the Smyth story and all the individual narratives of survivors speak of an institution sitting on a volcano of Truth. It is, I repeat, not the abuse events themselves that are the real problem; rather the collusion and cover-up perpetrated by church leaders will be felt to be even more shocking. Figures in senior positions in the Church even now know things that disgrace the institution. Perhaps they genuinely believe that suppression will somehow make these go away. That is never true. Meanwhile, every time we fail to own up fully to the past, we exacerbate the pain of survivors. Humility, honesty and Christian charity would genuinely act together to promote healing, not only for the survivors, but for everyone who wants to find wholeness and shalom in the Church of Christ.
There is nothing covered up that will not uncovered, nothing hidden that will not be made known. Mat 10.26

At some point over the next couple of months, we will receive the written report of IICSA on the Diocese of Chichester. No doubt there will be a flurry of paperwork as the Church of England responds to the inevitable critique of its past failures. What will be interesting is to see whether IICSA is now satisfied that the Church has put its house in order after the many past lapses. Have lessons really been learnt, as the cliché runs? While we await to hear these conclusions, we have read this past week a further example of poor record keeping and sloppy systems of communication within the Church. The Daily Mail recounted the story of Mark Kiddle, a convicted ex-Vicar, who was at the centre of an abuse episode going back to the 80s. The Mail has not been completely accurate in its reporting when it says that Kiddle was ‘moved to another parish’ after the trial and suspended sentence. He appears rather to have been allowed to attach himself to a City of London Church as an honorary assistant for several years. During this period, he was offered but declined the position of a ‘Deputy Priest in Ordinary to Her Majesty.’ This episode again demonstrates that the Church of England was in the past deficient in keeping proper records of serious abuse convictions on the part of its clergy.

Stories of this kind from the past are, sadly, rather common. But today we are reasonably confident that Church safeguarding procedures would ensure that indefinite suspension would immediately follow any such criminal conviction. PTOs or licences are also far harder to obtain for retired clergy. Everyone in this category is criminally checked and has to attend a safeguarding course. A PTO will be withdrawn if this is not complied with. From this point of view the Church is showing commendable diligence in protecting the vulnerable. But there is another part of the story where the Church is doing less well. In this Kiddle story, as with all other abuse accounts, there are victims. The victim in this case has no name given because of legal restrictions. Presumably the Church authorities have known about his identity for 30+ years. He now feels it important to sue as a way of dealing with his suffering. The Church naturally feels obliged to defend itself, so it employs lawyers and other professionals to mitigate as much as possible its financial liabilities. In whatever way it is handled, the abused individual is forced by the church to become a litigant. He is, for no fault of his own, forced to become the ‘other’, the one who stands over against the institution for which he may still have much loyalty and affection. This litigant role is costly in every sense and, for the abused survivor, it may feel very much like a new episode of abuse.

The enormous growth of the safeguarding ‘industry’ in the past ten years in the church and elsewhere has created a complex structure of professional training, regulations and policies. Surely things can only improve with all this effort? I have tried with information available online to understand how these safeguarding structures at a national level are supposed to work. The most senior body appears to be the National Safeguarding Steering Group (NSSG). This relates directly to the Bishops and oversees the other groups mentioned below. The National Safeguarding Panel (NSP) is a larger group which consults and advises on work done in this area. This is the body for which Meg Munn has recently been appointed as chair. It has a membership representing a variety of constituencies, including survivors’ groups such as MACSAS. This representation has allowed the NSP to claim that a ‘survivor perspective’ is influencing the agenda of the Church and its responses. But even as survivors are heard in this overseeing body, there is one important way where they have failed to create a decisive change in the other similarly sounding body, the National Safeguarding Team (NST). The NST is the front-line organisation which employs professionals to deliver the safeguarding policies and structures for the entire Church. It provides the necessary expertise for all the training that is going on up and down the country. The one glaring weakness in the NST is that it has neither the focus nor the expertise to deal with the needs of abuse survivors. I have, in a previous post drawn attention to the seventh statement in the stated role of the NST. Here we find that its ‘(sic) role is to develop and implement national survivors engagement and support work’. I am not sure exactly what these words mean in practice, but we do know that the published list of professionals working in the NST does not include a named individual to work with those already abused. Time and time again the message I hear from survivors is that the NST does not appear to be concerned about listening to the sufferings of the past. There is perhaps a fear of legal implications. But, as I have pointed out in a previous post, http://survivingchurch.org/2018/01/29/the-church-of-england-needs-better-lawyers/ the Law (Compensation Act 2006) does not regard the care of survivors as compromising any possible legal process. To put it another way, caring pastorally for the abused does not affect the level of pay-outs that might arise in civil cases. A readiness to engage pastorally with survivors might actually have the effect of reducing overall liability. Where legal remedies are sought by survivors, it may be in part the result of feeling that this is the only way of gaining the attention of the Church authorities. I am sure that the survivor representatives on the NSP are aware of the less than empathetic face of the NST in its dealing with the survivor population. The impression that is given is that the NST has been set up mainly to defend the financial and reputational interests of the Church. This will involve them in always trying to defuse and deflect the narratives of those who carry terrible stories of abuse from the past. Any attempt to bury the past or cast doubt on the veracity of survivors will always result in additional pain for this group.

The somewhat uncaring and even cruel interaction that often seems to mark the NST in its dealings with the survivor population is also felt to characterise the behaviour of some bishops. I suspect that the cases conducted by lawyers against the Church on behalf of victims would drop considerably if all the bodies connected with safeguarding really began to focus on the task of improving relationships with survivors. It is precisely because many safeguarding professionals and the bishops have been advised (wrongly I believe) by lawyers who work for insurance companies to keep survivors at arms-length that the chilly atmosphere of non- pastoral engagement and confrontation has evolved. If all bishops could start to behave as chief pastors once again, a lot of the tension and pain felt by survivors would end.

In one of the documents produced by the Church of England on the topic of safeguarding, it is stated that the ‘Church of England will care pastorally for victims/survivors of abuse and other affected persons’. A similar promise was made for those are the ‘the subject of allegations of abuse’. Somehow this part of the task of safeguarding has not yet happened. A survivor may be fortunate enough to have a local Safeguarding Adviser who goes the extra mile in showing understanding and insight in the matter of abuse trauma. Or they may not. Certainly, it is not part of the job description. Without funds from the centre for therapy and support it is hard to see how such professional and effective caring can be sustained. As long as the message from the centre seems to be one of defend and defuse as a way of protecting church assets, it is hard to see that the future will bring to the church anything except expense and a deteriorating reputation.

‘An Englishman’s way of speaking absolutely classifies him;
The moment he talks, he makes some other Englishman despise him.’

So lamented Henry Higgins in the film My Fair Lady. Anyone who has referred to the main meal of the day as ‘supper’ in a northern working class town will know what he meant. And when I moved from Sussex to Bradford I scandalised a church committee by saying I was ‘knackered’. Among my southern friends that simply meant ‘tired out’, but in 1980s West Yorkshire it was a far less innocent term. Similarly, when we moved from the USA to the UK I had to learn a whole new vocabulary. I remember how surprised I was when a dignified and conservative elderly lady was referred to as ‘chesty’; while English people knew I was from America the minute I opened my mouth.

The urge to classify people, to decide whether or not they are ‘one of us’, is very human, but can be deadly. The Bible (Judges 12) recounts the tale of two Israelite tribes, Gilead and Ephraim, who fell out and fought each other. As the defeated Ephraimites fled for home, the Gileadites stopped the fugitives at a ford of the river Jordan. There was nothing visible to distinguish one tribe from another; they were all related. The men of Gilead had a test, however. They stopped each man trying to cross and asked him to pronounce the word ‘shibboleth’ (a Hebrew word meaning roughly ‘ear of corn’). The word was innocent enough, but it was pronounced differently by the two tribes. Those who pronounced it ‘sibboleth’ were killed on the spot.

We still use the word ‘shibboleth’ to denote words and customs which distinguish insiders from outsiders; acceptable people from unacceptable. In 1950s and 60s conservative evangelical America, it was assumed that people who smoked, drank alcohol, danced, or went to movies were not ‘saved’. English evangelicals of the time, on the other hand, were shocked to see the wives of Billy Graham’s team wore make-up; that was worldly. For decades, you could tell whether someone was your ‘sort’ of Christian by what they believed about predestination, or the Rapture, or transubstantiation. The debates have moved on now, but the principle is still the same. Divorce and remarriage, women’s ordination, same sex relationships…the issues change but there always is an issue. Or two, or three issues. When we sing,
We are not divided,
all one body we,
one in hope and doctrine,
one in charity
it too often seems a bitter mockery.

Some years ago I attended an interfaith conference at which scholar Ida Glaser gave a talk comparing a chapter from Galatians with a sura of the Koran. It was fascinating. Afterwards I chatted to a leader of the conservative group Reform, who was sitting next to me. Dr. Glaser was all wrong about Galatians, he thought. Her exposition had seemed sound enough to me, so I asked what he thought was wrong with it. ‘She keeps saying Galatians is about grace,’ he replied, ‘when really it’s all about keeping the Law.’ How had he reached that conclusion, I asked. ‘We have to have Law,’ he replied, ‘so we know who’s saved and who isn’t.’ This seemed to me a complete contradiction not only of the message of Galatians, but also of the Gospel itself. After all, Jesus himself warned that it isn’t possible in this world to distinguish between those who are God’s people and those who aren’t. Some may appear to follow God but in fact do not; others seem uninterested in Christianity but live in a way that pleases God. We are not the judges, and we shouldn’t try to be.

It’s a temptation very few of us can resist, however. I frequently engage in discussion and debate with Christians and others on social media. And quite often someone will ask me, when I have put my view of the topic in question, ‘Are you a Christian?’ The implication is that they have doubts. Occasionally one or more participants will tell me outright that I am not a Christian – particularly if they discover that I am an ordained woman, or don’t believe the Bible forbids faithful same sex relationships, or whatever else the issue under discussion is.

I grew up in greater Chicago, an Irish-settled area where Catholics and Protestants didn’t mix. My evangelical background, too, had taught me to be deeply suspicious of Roman Catholics, and to consider a number of their views heretical. Then I moved to Manchester, and found myself living next door to devout, and very hospitable, Catholics. Over a bottle of wine one night we discussed some of the differences between Anglican and Catholic worship and doctrine. I found to my surprise that often we used different words to mean the same thing; and sometimes we used the same words and meant something different. I got rid of a lot of my shibboleths that night. We became good friends, and I learned a lot from them and other Catholics. I came to treasure some aspects of Catholic spirituality in my own Christian life.

Coming from a fundamentalist background, that’s a pattern I’ve found over and over again; people I thought were ‘outside’ turn out to be ‘inside’. Many of them are closer to God than I am and know more of God’s love and acceptance. They are certainly more able to extend God’s love to others than I am.

Early Celtic Christians used to speak of the ‘two books’ of God: the book of the Bible and the book of nature. Looking at the book of nature, we see how much God loves variety. There is a vast diversity in almost every natural thing we can think of, from snowflakes to Homo sapiens. God’s creation rejoices in distinctiveness and difference; only human industrial processes turn out identical items.

There is no reason to think that God wants all his people to look the same, use the same words, or hold identical beliefs. In the words of an old hymn which has become increasingly meaningful to me over the years:

There’s a wideness in God’s mercy,
like the wideness of the sea;
There’s a kindness in his justice
Which is more than liberty.

But we make his love too narrow
By false limits of our own;
And we magnify his strictness
With a zeal he will not own.

For the love of God is broader
Than the scope of human mind,
And the heart of the Eternal
Is most wonderfully kind.
(Frederick William Faber)

This is a guest post contributed by Janet Fife

In 2020 Anglican bishops from around the world are coming to Canterbury for the great gathering of the Lambeth Conference. A lot of work is even now going on to try to make sure that this meeting is an occasion of mutual encouragement for all these bishops. It is always a positive thing if a Christian leader is allowed time out, with the opportunity to look at the Christian faith from a different cultural perspective. Our British dependence on the English language and a Western world-view through which to apprehend the Christian faith, creates a somewhat narrow perspective. African or Asian perspectives can enrich the outlook of our British bishops just as we hope that the bishops from overseas will take something of our culture back home with them.

Lambeth 2020 should be an outburst of joyful celebration of this diversity of the international Anglican witness to the Christian faith. But there are various clouds that have appeared. In the first place, following the lead taken by the Archbishop of Nigeria, Nicholas Okoh, a contingent of African bishops are declining the invitation to attend. A similar boycott took place at Lambeth 2008. An alternative assembly of Anglicans gathered in Jerusalem to coincide with Lambeth and formed what came to be known as GAFCON (Global Anglican Futures Conference). This was supported by bishops from Africa and Asia and there was considerable practical and financial support from Australia and the States. One English Diocesan, the Bishop of Rochester, supported the event. The issue that was then said to be dividing Anglicans was the failure by many parts of the Communion to adhere to traditional doctrine and Scripture. This was a coded way of saying that some Anglicans did not agree with conservative perspectives on the gay issue. This has long been a key stumbling block across the Anglican world, especially since the consecration of an openly gay Bishop in the States in 2003.

The issue of gay marriage is probably peripheral to the lives of most ordinary lay Anglicans, especially in places like Africa. But it has been made a cause celèbre by Christian leaders across the Anglican world because it is the chosen arena of conflict for the so-called culture wars in the States. Enormous sums of money, much of it provided by wealthy American Right-wing foundations, have been spent on convincing as many as possible across the Christian world that the gay issue is a salvation matter. In summary we could claim that the same energy that is going into supporting the dubious right-wing Christian causes backed by President Trump is being expended on undermining and dividing the Anglican Communion. Anglican leaders are constantly being pressured to agree with conservative views on Scripture.

The dilemma for our Archbishop of Canterbury is acute. One line he might take is to say that Anglican Church is founded on principles that have nothing in common with the crude political theology of the American conservative Right. Anglicanism has always tolerated fundamentalism in its midst but, at the same time, it has always rejected any attempt ever to make this the compulsory option for everyone. Any Anglican appeal to Scripture has always been coupled with a balancing recourse to tradition and reason. Thus, Anglicanism is always open to newness and an evolving articulation of the Christian faith. The GAFCON conservative approach has always wanted to shut down discussion by saying that Scripture is always decisive and clear in its teaching. To deviate in any way from what the conservative leaders declare to be in Scripture is to fall into heresy and error. The matter on the agenda is at present, not the remarriage of divorced people or the ordination of women, but the single matter of gay marriage.

Many liberals in the Church of England have been taken by surprise by the way that this one issue of gay marriage has come to dominate so much discussion over the past 50 years. Far from being a core topic, it simply was not even discussed when I was a student in the 60s. It might have been aired in an ethics lecture, but no one, not even among conservatives, would have elevated it to the level of a doctrine or a salvation issue. It is hard for clergy of my generation to see the debate as anything other than as an attempt by conservative Christians to create divisions as a way of obtaining dominance within the Anglican Communion.

We spoke earlier of the culture wars in the States which have brought together right-wing politicians and fundamentalist Christians in a messy alliance. Happily, the conditions for such an unholy marriage do not exist in this country. Nevertheless, we still see growing confidence of conservative Christians within the Anglican Church. Trumpian politics may have indirectly seeded itself into a growing incivility in the debates between Christians. It used to be said that the Anglican Church was moving to a place of ‘good disagreement’ but this term seems to be becoming redundant. What is left is an increasingly rancorous struggle between ideologies. Lambeth 2020 is likely to be the last such conference if these wounds cannot in any way be healed.

Archbishop Welby is encountering an increasingly bitter rhetoric among some members of the Anglican Communion. He faces threats to the unity of the Communion from two sides. On the one side there are the GAFCON churches of Africa, Asia, Australia and both American continents. His aides will be in constant communication with provinces and dioceses, seeking to encourage their attendance. Then there are dissident bishops and groups within the Church of England itself. We have already noted the letter from eleven bishops which was expressing an identification with the GAFCON position over gay marriage. Only four diocesans signed this letter and so it can be assumed that the majority of the English diocesan bishops still support a broader position. But the problem is not just about bishops and dioceses. GAFCON’s supporters are not to be found in particular dioceses in this country but are located in the powerful and wealthy network of individuals and parishes which count themselves as part of the organisation, REFORM. This is a very conservative bloc within the Church of England which maintains ties with a variety of non-Anglican conservative groupings which use the Anglican label. Most of the clergy in REFORM were nurtured and trained within the same theological and social networks which used to support the disgraced Christian leader, John Smyth. Welby has never been identified with a REFORM label but he will have known many of their supporters through his own Iwerne and Christian Union contacts when a student. It is in fact sometimes quite hard to see ‘clear water’ between the REFORM world typified by St Helen’s Bishopsgate and Welby’s original spiritual home of Holy Trinity Brompton. The Iwerne camps certainly seemed to have endorsed both establishments as ‘sound’ and thus suitable for their ‘campers’.

Archbishop Welby is faced with a difficult problem in planning for Lambeth 2020. He is caught between two expressions of Anglicanism. The one that he has embraced since ordination is what we would describe as a flexible and even liberal version of the Anglican tradition. At the same time he is still the product of a tradition which is inflexible and strongly into intransigent Church politics. The right-wing model of politics in church and state knows only the need to dominate and control. Bodies like GAFCON want to create the whole Communion in their own image – a uniformly monochrome body, affirming the ‘unchangeable’ message of Scripture. The fundamentalism espoused by GAFCON (and the 11 bishops) cannot and will not tolerate differences. The problem for Welby is that, while he can claim to belong to a broader form of Anglicanism today, these older strands of thinking still claim part of his loyalty. His major task must be now to try and reconcile the warring factions which exist in the wider church but these rivalries also struggle inside himself. Can he provide the leadership that will hold things together? Will he be tempted to succumb to the intense lobbying and pressure from his old conservative friends? The battles being fought before and during Lambeth 2020 will define the nature of the Anglican Communion for ever. Will it become more like a conservative right-wing sect as many desire, or, will it be the place of inclusion and generosity which many of us also long for? The stakes are high, and we must pray that Archbishop Welby rises to the challenge of providing the leadership that Anglican Communion needs at this critical time.

I have been reflecting on the nature of human power and the way that for any individual it can be used for good or to create the most tremendous harm. Every child is born into the world with a need to find out who or what she is. Every parent tries to ensure that their offspring each takes possession of the gift of a firm identity or self. The discovery of a core self is never attained in a state of passive ‘niceness’. The child needs the skills of self-assertion – sticking up for the protection of this inner core. Being able to see off a bully -the one who attacks that core self- does not make the assertive child into a bully. It enables her to flourish better. As the child gets older, more and more of the natural abilities and skills that belong to the inner self are revealed. Bullying threatens to interrupt this precious process.

The readiness to stick up for ourselves against bullying, as a way of protecting and preserving our core selves, is something that we applaud. We know in practice how much can go wrong in the journey of growing up. A child can be dragged down by abusive behaviour and this may have the effect of damaging or even destroying the unique giftedness and creativity belonging to that individual. The experience of being bullied can also corrupt the child’s understanding of their inner power so that they become the bully themselves. Many children develop an instinct to understand personal power only as a tool with which to destroy. Smash up what is worthwhile and good because it does not belong to you. Tease and mock the child who has skills you do not possess, especially in the case of boys who practise those interests which are ‘soft’, like ballet or music. In vandalism or an episode of contemptuous mockery, the bully can obtain a fleeting sensation of power and control over what they despise as weak and contemptible.

All of us have witnessed the profound effects of bullying during our lives. We may have been one of the bullies or more probably one of its victims. Among children the effects can be so much more devastating because it is the unformed potential of the child that is under attack even before it has been allowed to show its full potential. In childhood, most bullying is completely invisible to the responsible adults. They just see the demoralised child who is failing to flourish or be happy. Adults cannot understand the evil that is being perpetrated so close to them but is unseen.

When we reflect on bullying and the abuse of human power a which takes place right across society, it is surprising that Christians do not have more to say about it. Outwardly Christians are staunch supporters of doing everything possible to encourage human flourishing in the widest sense. Creativity, joy and human fulfilment are perceived to be far more important than financial success or the rewards of status and power. Helping another person to blossom in some area of their lives is indeed a great source of satisfaction for anyone who tries to practice Christian love and encouragement. Clergy are especially privileged in this area as they try to be alongside individuals as they battle through one or other of life’s crises. To be with someone as they finally emerge from illness or a trial of some kind is a special occasion. Supporting a dying person on their last journey can also be a profound source of great light and joy. This is a paradox and a mystery. The dying person sometimes becomes the one doing the empowering for those left behind.

When bullying takes place in society and sadly in the church, it sadly appears to reflect that many individuals have never been taught to rejoice in the gift of their existence. Instead of being taught and encouraged to enjoy the richness of simply being alive, something has come along which has damaged the art of flourishing that we normally see in very young children. Perversely this failure to rejoice in life itself sometimes leads to a desire to harm the flourishing of others. Both sides are damaged in this process, the bullies and the bullied. It is at this point that the greatest irony occurs in respect of the Church. Not only is this vital topic not discussed but the Church in many places and contexts appears to increase the sum of this human pain. It does this by declaring that certain individuals, lifestyles and ways of life are always unacceptable to God. Good Christian people must continue this perceived divine disapproval and declare that such people have no place among the ‘saved’, the recipients of God’s favour.

This post does not propose here to say more about the topic of discrimination against LGTB individuals even though this group is at the sharp end of exclusion and bullying. My comment here is not to discuss the rights and wrongs of this cause, but merely to draw attention to the obscenity of bullying anyone and trying to drive them from the Christian family. Some weeks ago, I wrote about the Vicky Beeching story as well as the experiences of Jayne Ozanne. At the heart of the stories was the appalling bullying that these women receive. Christians somehow believe that it is their task to bully and use their power to try to seek and destroy another human being. To me such behaviour was and is a veritable blasphemy.

One of the key themes of the Bible, frequently repeated, is that an old order is finished. God himself is coming to inaugurate something new. I believe that the Church should often listen to the words of Isaiah 40 & 41 where it is declared that God is coming to visit his people. The whole passage speaks of joyful newness and hope for the future. The God who summons his people from the ends of the earth and declares new things is not one who singles out small groups to exclude them from his purposes. The message of the Bible is here one of incredible generosity and open-handedness. While there are examples of exclusion in Scripture, as we saw when we critiqued the eleven bishops and their assumptions about marriage in the Bible, there is also a frequent sense of new beginnings. I have preached many sermons on the pithy words of Jesus when he declares that ‘the Kingdom of God is among you’. These words are not the prelude to new pharisaic rules of exclusion and dogma. They are words that invite the hearer to open up to receive something new, powerful and transforming. The word ‘repent’ is an invitation to turn around to receive what is on offer, the flourishing that Jesus speaks of in John’s gospel. ‘I have come that they may have life, life in all its abundance’. In short, the Christian gospel is about human flourishing, the participation in joyous selfhood, one that is transfigured by the glory of God. All of us called to practise the love that makes this flourishing and transformation a reality in ourselves and in others. The kingdom is a place of unimaginable generosity where all find a welcome.

Words are powerful things and the same can be said for pithy two to three word designations of certain phenomena. A week or so ago I came up with the term ‘institutional narcissism.’ I would like to be able to say that I invented the term. The truth is slightly different. Someone else used the expression in an online conversation, without defining precisely what they meant. I went away and thought about the implications of the words and then fitted my thoughts and ideas around its possible meaning. Something similar has happened to me with another expression which has been current for a couple of years in the States. The expression is Religious Trauma Syndrome (RTS).

Why am I attracted to the term which I first met today (Friday)? I find it helpful because without any further explanation it is allowing us to suggest that religion and religious ideas can in some situations cause harm. This is counter-intuitive and it goes against our long-held assumption that religion is inevitably a benign force. As one involved for a long time in the world of religious abuse, I have of course known for a long time that such a notion is a false one. Just because there are examples of truth, goodness and beauty in the religious systems that we encounter in our world, we also have to be armed with the thought that religions can sometimes do harm. RTS helps us to think about it.

The author of the study that gives rise to our helpful descriptive phrase is Dr Marlene Winnell. Much of what I have to say here about RTS is taken straight from an article on the website https://www.rawstory.com. The article contains useful references to earlier literature and articles on this theme. My reading of the first lines of the article hit me with a strong sense of synchronicity when I started to read it on Friday morning. It begins with personal testimony of how the author, seeking help for bulimia from religious leaders, was expected as a teenager to solve the problem with the help of prayer and faith alone. By some extraordinary coincidence I received today a phone call from a woman in the Midlands who had also suffered at the hands of a Pentecostal congregation seeking to ‘heal’ her eating disorder.

Marlene presents us with many examples of the pastoral situations she has dealt with as a counsellor where individuals have been badly affected by damaging or toxic beliefs. We are familiar with all of these from earlier posts. She first focuses on the effect of teachings concerning hell and damnation especially as they impact small children. The film that circulated widely among evangelical believers called Thief in The Night had an enormous effect. Children who watched it would wake in the night screaming because of the raw fear aroused by the themes of the film -Armageddon and damnation. The undeveloped brains of children were not able to process the horrors and the trauma of the film. The effect of having to internalise the message that all the viewers were wicked and destined for hell was highly traumatic.

The long-term message that many children have been left with after a fundamentalist upbringing is to have a profound sense of worthlessness. Being told to obey the will of God at every turn can easily sap any sense of self-determination. The authoritarian culture of many of churches call members into a state of passive acceptance of obedience to what the leaders tell them. At the same time, it is made very hard or impossible to escape the clutches of the group. Leaving an authoritarian group is possible only by paying a very high price, including the loss of family and all other support networks. The mental adjustments needed to escape are also quite difficult to put into effect. As with cultic groups the churches that demand total obedience have created in the followers a rigid system of processing thoughts. It hard to see the world in anything other than binary categories – right-wrong or black-white.

RTS as a concept is helpful to enable us to identify those who emerge from religious groups as suffering from a state quite similar to PTSD. Winnell suggests that a therapist needs to have some insight into the syndrome so that at the very least there is understanding of the kinds of words or situations that can set off painful ‘triggering’. Even more important it is right for the sufferer of RTS to be protected from other well-meaning Christians who may also not understand the nature of the traumas formerly endured. Bible texts may be a long way from what is therapeutically required.

Winnell’s insights into RTS fit well into the assumptions of this blog. Potential harm by religious leaders is not only to be found among those who exploit power to prey sexually and emotionally on followers. A wider problem exists in that there are within the Christian tradition some potentially harmful and damaging ideas. Young adults who self-harm and suffer from chronic depression as the result of a life-time of religious indoctrination and chronic fear are not good advertisements for the religion of Jesus Christ. Tragically it is still considered by some Christians as ‘sound’ to teach the horrors of hell and the need to use violence against even infants. No, we have moved on from a casual acceptance of slavery and the devaluation of women and children precisely because we have come closer to understand the inner essence of Christ’s teaching. It took Christians 1800 years to see that slavery was evil and barbaric and still longer to outlaw the thrashing of children. But we have done these things, bitterly opposed by some Christians, because the law of compassion and love compels us to act in this way. For centuries, women, children and slaves experienced crushing trauma because ‘good’ Christian people were prepared to tolerate this treatment. Today we stand up to oppose all that is cruel and whenever and wherever we encounter trauma being administered in the name of a version of the Christian faith. Surviving Church is proud to be among those who seek to counteract Religious Trauma Syndrome.

Today’s reflection is a comment on a letter sent yesterday on behalf of a group of eleven Church of England evangelical bishops to an Anglican Working Party which is preparing a document Living in Love and Faith (LLF). This is to be the authoritative Anglican statement on sexuality in 2020. The bishops sending the letter self-identify as evangelicals. They consider themselves to be among those who ‘seek afresh to understand biblical truth on contested issues and offer this as public truth for the common good in our pluralist, post-Christendom society.’ These eleven bishops mention with approval the activities of GAFCON. There is a need for unity when ‘recent history tragically demonstrates that introducing changes in teaching and liturgy has consistently divided Anglican globally and within provinces.’ Others may have more insight into the question as to which strand of Anglican evangelicalism these bishops represent. The House of Bishops would number many more self-confessed evangelicals who, for reasons of their own, have not identified with the letter. Whatever group these signatories represent, their aim is clearly to offer to the LLF process an Anglican evangelical perspective, one that is non-negotiable. Many Anglicans who do not agree with them ‘have rejected traditional Christian teaching on human identity, sexuality and marriage.’ They urge those preparing the 2020 statement to maintain the ‘central place of Scripture’. The letter also calls on LLF to reiterate the traditional teaching of the Anglican Communion. There is of course the standard appeal to the 1998 Lambeth resolution 1.10. This is quoted in full to remind the reader that only ‘marriage as a union in a covenant of love marked by exclusivity and life-long commitment’ is to be regarded as the ‘teaching of Scripture’. Anything else will only be tolerated if it is ‘sexually abstinent’.

I found myself reading this letter with growing irritation. It represents an appeal to Scripture and traditional Anglican statements which will only work if the person doing the appealing is not familiar with Scripture. It is, in particular, the assumptions about what Scripture has to say about marriage that caught my attention. We have presented to us in the letter the idea that the Bible has but one model of sex and marriage that is commended by Scripture for all time. If we take the complete Bible as the uniquely inspired word of God, we encounter enormous problems in maintaining that there is this single model for sexual behaviour and marriage. Many of the assumptions about relationships between men and women in the Old Testament are, by today’s standards, criminal and totally unacceptable. Exodus 21 & 22 contains a number of divinely given commands which relate to relationships between the sexes that have been outlawed for centuries. No one for the past two thousand years would tolerate the idea that a man can sell his daughter into slavery. Equally abhorrent is the notion that a girl should be forced to marry her seducer/rapist. The Old Testament kings such as David and Solomon sat very lightly on any notion of monogamy or faithfulness. Israelite soldiers who were victorious in battle were rewarded with ‘plunder’ and that would have included the wholesale rape of captive women. I always wince at the lesson from Isaiah 9 when the joy of God’s presence is compared to the way that men are glad when they share out the spoil. Such spoil would always have included captive women and there would have followed terrible scenes of sexual violence.

Of all the passages in the Bible about sexual relations between men and women, one of the most poignant is the passage connected with the defeat of Midian in Numbers 31. The writer records that God himself commands the division of the spoil and there is specific mention of thirty-two thousand girls who were virgins. We must surmise that these girls were mere children for the most part. After a half share of sheep, cattle and asses was handed over to Yahweh, the rest were divided up among the troops and this included the girls, many of them barely in their teens. It is hard to imagine that gratuitous sexual violence against women of any age helped these troops in the task of creating stable families once back home.

Another story in Scripture which shows religious edicts working against stable family life is in the Book of Ezra. In chapter 10 we have recorded the ‘dismissing’ of the foreign wives of the returning exiles together with their children. What happened to these innocent women and children is not recorded but clearly, they were felt to be expendable. The story reminds us of the story of Hagar who was sent away from Abraham’s household at the insistence of his wife Sarah. Whether or not Hagar survived seems to have been of little concern to Abraham or his wife. Certainly, no blame was attached to either of them for this action.

Sex in the Old Testament thus often involved rape, polygamy and indifference to the fate of women. All these behaviours were expected and to some extent tolerated. None of them fit well in helping men and women discover a form of marriage which is in keeping with our modern ideals, those which involve mutuality and permanence. A chaste picture of one man faithfully married to one woman is hardly the norm that we find in Scripture. The bishops who wrote the letter to LLF are presumably familiar with the pattern of sexual untidiness in the Bible and so, telling people that there is a ‘biblical’ model of monogamy and faithfulness is frankly dishonest. Even if we maintain that rape and sexual violence were not approved of in Israelite society, it is still hard to claim that the ancient Israelite expectations for the marriage relationship have much to offer our modern aspirations. Things do seem to improve by the time of the New Testament, but it is notable that conservative Christians seem today to make very little mention of Jesus’ clear injunctions about divorce. A great deal of energy is expended in condemning same sex marriage, on which Jesus has nothing to say, at the same time ignoring his words on the one area of marriage where he is clear. Too many church leaders, especially in the States, have ‘failed’ in this respect and second and even third marriages are common. They retreat to the convenient moral ‘ideal’ that of insisting all marriages to be between members of the opposite sex.

There is more to be said about why a group of bishops in England should take this position which has the potential to undermine the whole LLF project. I detect that in this stance the bishops are tempted by the reward of being bonded with other Anglican bishops across the world who are uniting in a tribal pact to insist that they alone have the truth in the way they understand the Bible. Strength through being part of the evangelical tribe is maybe what they seek in making this stand. Whether it can serve the cause of truth a completely different matter.

One of the advantages of having had to study the Bible in the original languages is that one can, on occasion, query the English translations. Individual words subtly change their meanings over time and there is always the possibility of gaining brand new insights when the original words behind the translations we have are examined in detail. In saying this I am not expecting every Christian to be knowledgeable in Greek and Hebrew. Nevertheless, I would ask that Christians are always cautious before pronouncing that they know exactly what a word or passage in the Bible means. Translation is always a work in progress and new translations will continue to appear. Any attempt to suggest that we can ever finally know what the Bible is telling us is based in fantasy. The gap between our own age and the world and languages of the Old and New Testaments remains and this will always inhibit complete understanding. We want to understand the words of Scripture, but we are forced to admit that sometimes our comprehension of that meaning is sometimes at best incomplete or approximate.

In thinking about the way words have changed their meanings over the 2-3,000 years since the Bible, I think of those individual words that I used to preach whole sermons about. One of these is the word for spirit or soul. Today when we use the word spirit, we normally think about it as an aspect of our being that lies beyond the physical. The spiritual part of me is that which goes on after physical life ceases. Alternatively, we think or spirit or soul as the inner dimension of our being. The Hebrew writer has a somewhat different take on the words translated spirit. It is the aspect of us that signifies life and physical vitality. Two Hebrew words are translated spirit. One the word ‘nephesh’ means breath, particularly the breath of God. The other ‘ruah’ literally means wind, God’s wind. In the second of the two Genesis creation stories, the earlier one as it happens, God breathes nephesh into the dust of the earth to make man alive. Having nephesh inside one was a signifier of vitality, possessing energy to be alive. The same word is used to describe Elisha taking on the spirit of Elijah. Ruah is the word used when life is returned to the dry bones that Ezekiel saw in his vision. God’s spirit or wind filled those bones and they became alive once more. The spirit of God made human beings fully alive.

It is these Old Testament emphases on life and vitality that we need to have in mind when we seek to understand the stories of Acts about the coming of the Holy Spirit. Over the centuries we have domesticated the Holy Spirit to being something very private and inward. Alternatively, we associate ‘Spirit-filled worship’ with special styles of music to which we may or may not be indifferent. Either way miss the dynamic of power and energy that the Old Testament background suggests to us. Whatever else is implied by the Spirit it seems to embrace the total potential of life in all its fullness. In addition, it is also pointing us to a richer experience of community life than we have ever known. The Bible, in short, is pointing us to those powerful words of Irenaeus – The Glory of God is found in a human being fully alive.

Another word that we have domesticated in the Bible is the word faith. It is a word that in common usage implies an inner activity, that of believing something to be true. The Bible, in contrast sees faith not as looking inwards but as looking outwards. The act of faith is typically seen in Abraham who set out on a journey, ‘not knowing where he was going’. The object of faith was not some abstract belief system or even the existence of God. Faith was the readiness to confront the unknown and venture forward because you believed that God was going ahead and showing individuals and the whole nation the way forward. The revelation of the Biblical God to the Hebrews was that he was alive and active in the events of history.

An individual who had this faith could get up in the morning with the strong sense that God was there, calling him or her to live out that that truth in whatever way they could. The deeper that one engages with life and its challenges, the more opportunity one had of meeting God himself. Thus, one’s religious faith was bound up with the journey and the adventure of living.

This brief examination of two words in their original cultural context helps us to see the wider fuller meaning that each possesses. Two things need to be emphasised here. First, we must not expect the words of the Bible to fit easily into the theological debates that we have today. St Paul did not know the things that now divide Christians. We must always be cautious before claiming that any doctrine is somehow ‘biblical’. Even when there may be a consensus among all Christians about the meaning of a particular passage, the possibilities of finding fresh meanings never end. There is no such thing as a single interpretation of the Bible. There is always more to be revealed.

A second point follows from the first. If a single, once for all, dogmatic interpretation is never appropriate for the understanding of a passage of Scripture, then this also applies to our faith. In short there needs to be a provisionality about the way we express the words that describe our Christian journey. The words of Scripture constantly reveal more of their meaning as we study them in an attitude of expectation. On this blog I have often described the Christian faith as a journey. A journey has as its main feature a state of unknowing about the destination, but it is fuelled by a strong sense of expectation and adventure. The journey of faith which is shrouded by a ‘cloud of unknowing’ is far more exciting and worthwhile than a package tour which has no surprises of any kind. ‘Here we have no abiding city; we seek one to come’. May we travel there enlivened with the spirit of life that God gives us and with the faith that gives us the confidence that he is with us to the end.